The Grumpy Old Mens Club has it's own
Members Only image hosting so it is faster
and more reliable than most of the "Free"
image hosting sites and is free from annoying
adverts. You can have open or locked
Gallery's and link from there to anywhere
BUT please remember this is for ACTIVE
members of this site and its associated
Forum and as a Family oriented site
INAPROPRIATE images will not be tolerated.

Information Sharing

We have many members with MANY
years experience in all areas of
Philately and they are only too happy
to help with any questions you may
have in stamps, FDC's, commercial
covers, post mark's, Cinderella's and
almost any aspect of stamp
collecting you have an interest in -
Just join up to our forum and ask
away.

Trading

We have a section for
you to buy, sell, swap or
just give away stamps,
covers, catalogues, or
anything related to
philately and best of all it
is free to list items (A limit
to the number that can be
listed at any one time may
be applied)

How did the GOMC start - The newspaper story

From the Marroondah Leader Newspaper:

THEY call themselves the "Grumpy Old Men" club.
They are several members from the Ringwood and District Philatelic Society who gather at Ron Collumbine's Hewish Arcade toy
and games shop in Croydon after meetings.

The men sit and discuss anything from stamps to the state of the economy, often with a keen sense of humour. Mr Collumbine, who
arrived in Australia from Scotland in 1959, has been a member of the philatelic society since 1972.

He said the club began at Ringwood's Holeproof factory in 1952 and now had about 90 members. "We don't necessarily collect just
stamps," Mr Collumbine says. "We are born collectors. I often say that if the government banned collecting stamps tomorrow people
would go and collect twigs." Mr Collumbine said he collected anything related to postal history.

He showed me one of his favourite items, a 1696 letter from a British debt collector to his boss. "As you can see, he was reclaiming
a debt but was told what he could do with the debt," Mr Collumbine said.

"From looking at shipping and post marks you can learn about general history; this one shows little has changed."

Croydon's Bill Willis, 60, told me he is one of the younger members of the club, a claim the others are quick to dispute.
He said he would have about one million stamps in his collection. "Don't ask me what they are worth because a lot of them are worth
nothing," Mr Willis said. "It is not hard when you buy them in 5kg boxes."

Mr Collumbine said the society was largely made up of older men but there were several young children and women members. He
said meetings consisted of sales, exchanges, displays and guest speakers.

"In the 1980s almost every suburb in Melbourne had a stamp shop," he said. "There are now very few but stamps are still the biggest
form of collecting in the world." The society meets at the elderly citizen's clubroom at Ringwood's Federation Estate on the first
Thursday and third Monday of each month.

This group became involved with the WWW on different forums and on February 11th 2010 WWW.theGOMC.com was born.

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